STEVEN Davis calmed fears of an impending crisis at Saints, insisting that morale remains high and that Ronald Koeman’s men are focused on turning their poor form around.

The 1-0 defeat to Norwich on Saturday marked a new low in Saints’ recent slump.

Not only did Victor Wanyama get – as manager Ronald Koeman put it – “painfully” sent-off at Carrow Road but Sadio Mane showed that he was far from focused on Saints’ cause.

The Senegal international, after showing a poor attitude in training earlier in the week, then had the audacity to turn up late at a team meeting prior to the Canaries defeat.

With Koeman livid in his post-match press conference, Davis, one of Southampton’s most experienced and level-headed characters, soothed fears that the club are about to spiral into crisis, having recorded their fourth successive away defeat in Norfolk.

“By no means is it a squad full of doom and gloom in there,” explained the Northern Irishman.

“The situation we’re in isn’t ideal in terms of the last four or five weeks, because of the results.

“But there’s still a lot of belief in the squad that we can go on and have a strong season.

“We need to do something about that sooner rather than later, though. “

Although Koeman lambasted Mane for his attitude and lack of discipline, Davis played down the whole affair but accepted that the former RB Salzburg man could well have made the difference against Norwich.

“It’s maybe not ideal, but I don’t want to put too much emphasis on that in terms of the result today because the performance in the first-half was good,” said the midfielder who turned 31 on New Year’s Day.

“Ultimately the performance was good, barring a couple of incidents. It’s just so frustrating not to come away with anything.”

He added: “He’s (Mane) an important player to us and he’s the type of player that can create something out of nothing.

“There’s not too many of them around so, of course, he plays a massive role and that was the decision the manager made.”

Mane was finally introduced to the game with ten minutes to play, but by then it was too late as Alex Tettey’s strike four minutes earlier saw the Canaries take victory and move to within a point of Saints in the bottom half of the Premier League.